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GEOLOGY.
59
above-mentioned elevation of the land followed in the southern part of the Baltic
and North Sea basins and adjacent land territory a slow-proceeding depression,
whereby, for instance, the lands bordering the Belts and the Sound were sunk
to a somewhat lower level than their present one. Thus the water of the
North Sea made its way into the Ancylus Lake, transforming it into an
inland sea with water of low salinity. The channel of communication thus opened
up was broader than the present one, and the consequence was that the
salinity of Baltic Sea water at that time became ultimately higher than it is
nowadays. After a mollusc, Litorina litorea, found in the deposits of the
above-named inland sea it has been called the Litorina Sea.
The marine deposits yield in the main the best and the most easily tilled
soils in Sweden and have, therefore, been principally allotted to agriculture.
Thus the parts of the country that are most highly cultivated and show the
densest population are broadly speaking identical with those areas that formerly,
in glacial and post-glacial times, were covered by the sea.
-X -jr
Sweden is a land abounding- in lakes. In addition to the larger inland lakes,
there are up and down the country an innumerable multitude of smaller lakes
of varying size. Still more numerous are the mosses or bogs, consisting of
peat, etc. The majority of them were originally lakes.
That Sweden abounds in so high a degree with lakes and peat-mosses is to
be accounted for partly by the broken and uneven surface that a large
proportion of the Archæan bed-rock acquired, owing to weathering and other causes,
while it was uncovered by the sea, and partly by the results of the moraine
deposits of the Glacial Epoch in the form of embankments and mounds.
Another salient feature of the configuration of Sweden is the "Skärgård", or
cluster of islands fringing the coast; this feature is present off several parts
of the coast-line of the country. The skerries, islands, and islets are very
numerous and the fringe of them off the coast is now wider, now narrower.
The elevation of the land is still proceeding, though at a very slow rate:
only about half a meter in a century.
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